Matt Bowles: Hey, everybody. It’s Matt Bowles. Welcome to The Maverick Show. Today, I’m with Nick Martin. He has been a full-time world traveler and adventure seeker for over eight years. He’s also a podcast host, author, and professional storyteller whose stage shows have drawn paid audiences of over a thousand people to hear his travel stories and inspirational advice about living life to the fullest. In 2017, he gave his first TEDx Talk on how to get the most out of your life through travel. He’s also the founder of Travel University which is dedicated to helping people realize their own travel dreams away from social expectations and career pressure. All of Nick’s work is built around his core belief that every person can give back more and transform the world into a better place by learning for themselves what it means to live out their own dreams, and his primary personal aspiration is that he wants to look back on his life at some point with a grin on his face, laugh to himself, and say, “Hell, yeah. What a ride.” Nick, welcome to the show.

Nick Martin: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Matt: Now, as a full disclosure to our audience here, this is actually our third attempt to record this show. This was conceptualized. You and I were on the dance floor at 3:00 in the morning, and you had just bought me a shot of Sambuca, and we were talking about travel stories and I said, “I need to interview you for my podcast. How about we do it tomorrow?” and you said, “Great” and we agreed on the time and the place, and I was like, “Man, is this guy going to remember to show up” because at 3:00 in the morning I’m not sure –

Nick: I was hammered.

Matt: – he was in the condition to remember that, and sure enough you didn’t show up. You apologized to me later. We set it up for the following day, and the following day you showed up immediately on time. We recorded an epic conversation, and I had an audio glitch problem with my recording and the audio was unusable. So, I have just bought another bottle of wine for Nick, which I told him would be even better than the first bottle of wine in our conversation to get him to come back one more time and record this because he has some truly spectacular life experiences, travel stories, and advice to share. We are currently doing this interview on the beach in Brazil. We’re in the beach town of Pipa. We just got here a couple of days ago.  So, we can literally see the ocean from where we are recording this interview, and Nick, great to have you back.

Nick: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’m pumped to be back for the second time, and the first time was truly amazing, but I think with this bottle of red wine it’s going to be even better. It’s going to be even better, Matt. I can tell you.

Matt: Now, have you been to Brazil before?

Nick: No. Actually, it’s my first time.

Matt: How is it going for you so far?

Nick: Since I got here today? Yesterday? Today, I went to Madeiro Beach. It’s – I don’t know – 10 minutes with a car. I was surfing there. So, first time surfing in Brazil, first time surfing on a longboard, and fucking first time surfing with dolphins. Literally, I’m high on life right now. I surfed with dolphins today. They were three meters away. I was like, “Holy shit!” My friend Bayern – I said, “Bayern! Hurry and see!” and he’s like, “What? What?” and I was like, “The fucking dolphins are right there,” and I was like, “Holy shit!” Nobody would believe me though. It’s amazing surfing with dolphins. Oh, my God. It’s fucking amazing.

Matt: You’ve surfed all around the world in a number of different places, and this was your first experience like this surfing.

Nick: I almost could touch it. I didn’t intend to touch them, but they were just two to three meters away, and I was like, “Holy shit.” It was amazing. It was breathtaking.

Matt: Unbelievable. So, that’s amazing. So, I don’t surf, but maybe I should start learning to surf in a place like this.

Nick: Seriously. The waves are not that big right now, so you can get out and get a longboard, and it’s quite easy to surf.

Matt: I may do that and I’m also going to try kitesurfing. We’re going to go up to Jeri next week. I think you’re going to go as well.

Nick: Jericoacoara or something like that.

Matt: That’s right. Have you kitesurfed before?

Nick: Yes, I’ve tried it in Dahab in Egypt. To be honest, it’s not my thing. I’m more like a wave surfer because with the kite and all of the equipment, it’s just too much stuff to concentrate. I know you have to give it some time, but I’m more like, “Let’s paddle and let’s just pop-hop and surf the waves and wave to the dolphins.”

Matt: I love it. So, let’s start a little bit with your backstory. You’ve now been traveling the world full-time for eight years. Let’s start a little bit with your backstory in terms of what led up to that. What was your life like before you started traveling and what led to that decision?

Nick: Long way back. So, we’re time traveling now to the year 2009. Back then, I was 22 years old and I used to be an IT businessman, so I was wearing a suit, driving a fancy, nice business car, an Audi A3, and being 22, I was kind of like a dickhead. I was really materialistic and I thought, “You know what? I can drive this car and make this decent amount of money” and just the normal Monday to Friday rat race I had. In 2009 in March, something happened. So, I went on my annual leave. So, I flew to New Zealand, and March is the prime time of winter depression. So, everybody just walks around and they haven’t seen the sun for ages, and they’re just really negative. They just spread around negative wipes, and it’s just gray and rainy and dizzy. I don’t like it. At that time, I flew to New Zealand to the other side of the world, and there, the southern hemisphere, it was summer, and it was 25 degrees. I rented a van. The first day as soon as I hopped in the van, I drove along the highway and I came along a really beautiful beach, and I was like, “Oh, my God. I just want to stay there for the night.” So, I packed my van and I walked out. Instantly, this kind of like MacGyver feeling came up, and I was like, “I need to do a bonfire” just walking along the beach and getting some wood to start a fire. Other backpackers joined me. We had some decent food. We shared some wine as we’re doing right now. We shared some travel stories. So, actually, those guys shared some traveled stories because I haven’t lived through so many at that time. That night, something really crazy and really special happened. When I walked back to my van, I went to bed and I fell asleep to the sound of the ocean. I had this huge smile on my face, and back then in 2009, I could not remember when was the last time I just was purely happy and satisfied and just had a smile on my face. I could just fall asleep without any thoughts in my head and something like that. So, it was just purely amazing, and the next day I woke up and something even more crazy happened because I was still smiling, and that went on for three weeks. Every single day, I was meeting new people and I had new adventures and I discovered the landscapes of New Zealand for myself and it was amazing, and after three weeks I came back into this really cold and gray Germany, and I was like, “I don’t like it.” I think it lasted for maybe four to five weeks. I had this feeling in me in my stomach and in my gut of this – I don’t know what happened, but something might have happened in New Zealand. Then, actually, I thought about my life and about the trails. When you imagine your life on train tracks, I could purely see myself walking on the same tracks for another five years, 10 years, 15 years, and 20 years, and of course I would get some more money, I would maybe become CEO of a company or become a higher salesman or whatever, but as I imagined that picture of myself in 20 to 25 years, I was really scared about that and that was actually the moment realized, “Holy shit. I think there’s more than just selling business software, wearing a suit, and getting some money each month paid to your bank account to buy some materialistic stuff and pose for people you actually eventually don’t like.” That was the moment I decided to travel the world, and my initial plan was literally to travel for one year. I’m German. I’m always prepared, so we plan everything. The audience might hear the accent. I’m from Germany, and we plan everything. I decided to have a gap year or a sabbatical year. Back in 2009, I went to my boss and I was like, “You know what? I might kind of consider leaving you guys in two years, so I’ll just get a little bit of money right now, and then I’m traveling for one year, and I will get paid the rest,” and he was like, “No.” Basically, he said, “Nein.” So, basically, he just screwed up my plan to travel the world for one year, and then I was like, “You know what? Then I think I’m going to quit.” Right now, it’s really easy to speak about it, but back then it was more like, “Okay. Then I think I’m going to – I’m going to – I’m going to quit my job.” So, I was literally crying in front of my boss.Right now eight years later when I look back, I think it’s the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

Matt: So, what was the initial plan when you decided to go for one year? How much money had you saved up to cover that one year and what was your initial plan when you set out?

Nick: My initial plan was flying with a one-way ticket to Mexico, from Mexico traveling all the way through to Mexico City, flying to Atlanta, traveling up the east coast all the way from east Canada to west Canada, back down to San Francisco, flying to Hawaii, back to L.A., from L.A. to the Fiji, from Fiji to Australia, from Australia to Thailand, from Thailand to Dubai, and Dubai back to Germany. That was my initial one-year plan.

Matt: You did have that all planned out.

Nick: As I said, I’m German. Of course, we have a plan. We have a plan for everything. Literally, that was my plan and I decided, “I’m going to do it for one year. That means 365 days,” and I thought, “I can live each day with about 25 Euros.” It’s like $30.00 or something. I had no clue and no experience at all, but 365 by 25 Euros, that led up to 9,000 Euros. That was my initial plan to budget my – I wanted to have that money, but back then when I decided to travel the world, I just had 3,500 Euros in my bank account, so basically I had a gap for 5,500, and therefore – and then we come to one of the most important lessons I’ve learned even before my traveling but even more while I was traveling the world or while I’m traveling the world. It’s to set your priorities in the right way.So, back then I was like, “Fuck it. I want to travel the world, so I need to earn some money, need to make some cutbacks on my costs, and I need to gain even more money.” So, basically, I sat down and I wrote a list of how much money I do spend in a month for everything. I wrote down every single cent I spend on booze, on going to the cinema, going out with my friends, going out with my girlfriend, eating dinner, doing whatever, and after one or two months, I said, “Holy shit. I spend a lot of money for bullshit.” So, I decided to cut all of those costs. I was like, “No. I’m not going to spend money on that.” So, I just transferred that money into my travel account, and on the other side, I said, “You know what? I need to make some more money, but since I already told my job I’m going to quit, they were like, “No. Fuck you. We don’t want to give you any more work so you can make some more money.” So, I decided to look for a second job. So, I used to be a bartender. So, I applied for a job as a bartender and I was like, “Okay.” So, during the week from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., I was working as an IT businessman wearing a suit, and back then I was like – I went to the toilet in my office and I got changed. I had my black pants, my black shirt, and black leather shoes. So, I went to the bar and I was doing bartending until 2:00 a.m. in the morning, and then I had four hours of sleep, I went back to work, and it was really exhausting. I was really tired, but it didn’t feel really hard because I knew it was for something I really wanted to do, to travel the world, and every single time I closed the bar, in my head it was like, “And I earned another 32 beers in Mexico.” I always had a beer calculator in my head because we Germans, we love beer. So, instead of like, “Yes! I earned 60 Euros,” I was like, “Fuck, yes! I earned 32 beers in Mexico,” and therefore, I was really highly motivated to save up some money, make some cutbacks on my spending money, and after a couple of months – New Zealand happened in March 2009. I decided to quit my job in July, so I ran out of my contract in December 2009, and on the 11th of February 2010, I sat on the airplane to Mexico –

Matt: With 9,000 Euros.

Nick: – with 9,010 Euros in my bank account.

Matt: So, you land in Mexico. That is your first time ever going to Mexico, and what was the Mexican experience like for you? I’ve been there a couple of times. I’ve been to some beach towns and I also lived in Mexico City for a month last year which was amazing and truly one of my favorite places but having never been there before and you just land there, what – and of course that’s the first stop on your travel journey as well. So, what was that like for you?

Nick: It was amazing. Literally, I came out of the airport, and of course, you know Mexico out of the movies. They’re all about drugs and they’re all about human trafficking, and you’re just getting really excited walking outside of the airport, and there are some Mexican dodgy motherfuckers. They’re going to be like, “[Speaking Spanish]. I was like, “No, motherfucker. You do not traffic me all the way down to the border of I don’t know where.” So, I just bought a bus ticket going from Cancun to Playa del Carmen. I was supposed to stay there for about a month to learn Spanish because when I went to Mexico, the only Spanish I could speak were two sentences. I could tell a girl that she has beautiful eyes and I could order a beer. That’s it. That was all my Spanish. On the way from Cancun to Playa del Carmen, on that night, I came across some checkpoints and they had huge machineguns, and I was like, “Holy shit. This is the real Mexico,” but as soon as I got used to my neighborhood in Playa del Carmen and I went to the Spanish language school, it was truly amazing. I learned Spanish very quickly. I went to a language school. Back then, I had – I don’t know – maybe from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. I had school. I used to live with a Mexican family. My guest mom, Juanita, she took care of me. So, every single day after school I went back home got served a really amazing and tasty, but really hot and spicy chili soup. I was like, “Holy shit.” That burned twice at least, sometimes three times. After three days, when you learn the language – actually that’s really cool that we talk because as much as American, a lot of people view it as, “Oh, we can just speak one language.” Obviously, I can just speak German and a little bit of English, but [Speaking Spanish]. That means something like “I can speak Spanish right now as well,” but a lot of people are really scared to learn a language. It’s actually quite simple as long as you’re not afraid of making mistakes and make as many mistakes as you can because that’s the way you learn it. So, For example, I was like – I learned Spanish in the first place. I conjugated verbs. I was like, “I speak. You speak. We speak. They speak.” It sounds a little bit different in Spanish, but there were five days just to conjugate verbs, and on the third day I came home. I ate this chili soup, and I really wanted to talk Spanish with my guest mom, Juanita, and I told her “Juanita,” and I told her in Spanish that I’m a really good cook. Back home I could cook better than my mom, and I was really fascinated to tell her that kind of a compliment, and she just looked at me, and she just stood up, and she just smacked my face, and I was like, “Holy shit. What is going on? Excuse me. I just gave you a compliment.” As a German, I got quite offended. I was like [Speaking German]. So, basically, I was like, “Holy shit. I don’t know what is going on,” and she just walked away and I couldn’t see her for the rest of the day. The next day, I explained that situation at my Spanish school and my teacher, she was like, “No, you didn’t say that yesterday.” I was like, “What? What did I say then?” and she explained to me that instead of telling my guest mom “hey, I can cook and I cook better than my mom,” I directly put it in a phrase of like, “Juanita, I can cook really good, and I can cook better than your mom.” So, therefore, I realized Mexicans do not like your mom jokes, but it was all right. I made shitloads of mistakes, but the good thing is there was an Italian girl in my class. There were shitloads of Germans and Swiss people, so they all just spoke German in the breaks, and me and this Italian girl, we got along really well, but she could barely speak English and couldn’t speak German at all. I couldn’t speak Italian, so we were forced to speak Spanish. So, it’s quite impressive if you need to speak a different language how auditive you will – after four weeks, I was walking around in Mexico and people asked me, “Excuse me, but where are you from? Are you Italian?” I was like, “Fuck, no. I’m not Italian,” but apparently, now when I speak Spanish as a German, I sound Italian.

Matt: You speak it with the Italian accent.

Nick: Yes. It’s like [Speaking Spanish].

Matt: That’s amazing. I, too, had amazing experiences with the people of Mexico in Mexico and all of that, and I feel like Mexico is such an amazingly diverse country in that, and Mexico City as an urban metropolis is just truly extraordinary, but then the beaches are also amazing. If you can get out on a boat, that’s also amazing.  

Nick: The beaches are amazing, in Yucatán, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Isla Holbox, or [Speaking Spanish]. I’m getting back to the Spanish right now. The wine works. I tell you, the wine works, but it’s truly amazing. I really fell in love with Mexico, with the country, and with the people. They’re really lovely, and the food is amazing. I’ve traveled to more than 70 countries. My favorite food is definitely Mexican like Choriqueso, Pico de Gallo. It’s mouthwatering.

Matt: It’s amazing. I agree. It’s so cheap, and you can get the street food tacos which are just spicy and amazing and inexpensive, and after 2:00 in the morning –

Nick: It’s the best food ever.

Matt: – it’s the best thing you’ll ever taste.

Nick: It’s the best food, and to be honest, also in Asia when you go out and you have street food, it’s even more hygienic than eating out in restaurants because you can actually see where they cook, so they keep their stuff clean. You don’t know how dirty it could be in the kitchen in the back of a restaurant or something. So, I would highly recommend. The street food is the best and also really cheap, so for traveling on a low budget, it’s fucking amazing.

Matt: It really is an amazing place to go, and a lot of people I think have a perception, especially Americans for example, that Mexico is a dangerous place in part because a lot of the stuff on the news has lots to do with narco-trafficking routes and all of this other kind of stuff.

Nick: Of course, but that’s the funny part because every single American I’ve met – not exactly single American, but a lot of them, they were like, “Oh, yeah. I’ve been to Mexico. I’ve been to Tijuana.” I was like, “Yeah, of course, you have that kind of impression of Mexico.” I’ve been to Tijuana and it was fucking dodgy. I went to San Diego and I went back to Tijuana for Cinco de Mayo, which is the celebration day in Mexico, and it was crazy. Or Ciudad Juárez. No, you’re not supposed to go there. There are the narcotics and narcos and human trafficking and shit’s going on, and to be honest, what I also realized is when you’re able to speak the language – I don’t speak Spanish in a professional way, but even if you are able to communicate with the locals, they give you credit for it. They will treat you with way more respect than just when you say “Hola” and “[Speaking Spanish] Coca-Cola, por favor.” No, it’s not going to work like that. You really have to put effort into it. They’ll respect you way more than just being a bloody tourist.And there’s one pick – not a pick-up line, but I got taught when you’re in Mexico, you’re just going to say [Speaking Spanish]. That basically means, “Don’t fuck with me. I’m a fucking backpacker. I’m not a fucking tourist, motherfucker.”

Matt: That’s amazing. So, from your Mexican experience as your first stop, what are the highlights? Memories? Is there a particular experience that stands out to you?

Nick: Well, because you already mentioned the boat thing in Mexico – actually, I used to do a lot of CouchSurfing back then. When I was on the west coast of Mexico, I was actually able to CouchSurf on a catamaran. I started in Mazunte with the initial plan to go just to Cabo San Lucas. That was a three-day trip, three nights, three days. It was amazing. Our crew, it was just we were all CouchSurfing. This one guy, Gary, he’s from – I don’t know, somewhere from The States. Maybe he’s going to hear that podcast one day. So, there was Captain Gary, an American guy.

Matt: Can you explain what CouchSurfing is just for people –

Nick: Sure.

Matt: – that haven’t done it before or don’t travel or don’t know what that is? How does that work?

Nick: So, CouchSurfing is Facebook, just different. So, it’s like a social media platform or not even like – actually, it’s social. It’s like a social platform, but you can log in and you have your own profile. You can update some pictures, you can describe yourself, and the whole philosophy behind CouchSurfing is that you, as a world traveler, are able, as a CouchSurfer, to surf on other couches – basically to sleep on other couches. For example, while I’m traveling right now in Brazil or I don’t know and you would live here in Pipa, and we’re kind of like-minded people and you just love hearing travel stories or just want to help out because you travel a lot as well, you just set up your own CouchSurfing profile and you say you’re a host. So, basically, you would offer a couch for some CouchSurfers. So, basically when I’m looking to – I’m going to go to Pipa. Are there any CouchSurfing hosts? You’re going to show up, I’m going to write you a message, and I can look at your dashboard with some references so it’s quite safe because you can edit it, you can look at mine, and I’m going to be like, “Hey, Matt. Hey. My name is Nick. I’m traveling around the world. I’m this weird German motherfucker.” I don’t know. “Can I sleep on your couch?” and then you’re going to be like, “Yeah. Yeah, boy. Yes, you can” or “No.” So, basically, I’m just going to come up here and just crash on your couch for free. I don’t have to pay, but you should always be able to say “thank you” in a particular way. My way to say thank you was I cooked for them. So, basically, I just opened the fridge and was like, “Do you want me to make something out of what you have in your fridge or shall I go shopping and I’m just going to prepare a traditional German meal or something?” Everybody loves to eat. That was my way to say thank you, and it worked out just fine.

Matt: So, through the CouchSurfing network that you were using to get your accommodations for free which is how you were getting by on $30.00 on a day, right?

Nick: Yes.

Matt: You were able to land a CouchSurfing spot on a catamaran? That sounds amazing.

Nick: I know. I know. I don’t know if it’s still possible, but sometimes – back in the days, you log on to CouchSurfing and you’re just going to type anywhere you are right now, and they say “spots available next to you,” and I was like, “All right. There’s a nice picture of a catamaran.” I was like, “All right.” I just clicked on it and I was like, “Holy shit. This guy’s offering a couch on a bed on a catamaran.” I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to write that guy.” He messaged me back, and I know I was three days away from Mazatlán where we started, and he was like, “Yes. Okay. It’s all right. I’m going to give you more details – I don’t know – maybe tomorrow,” but I was like “Oh, shit. I really need to be there in two days,” so I just hopped on a bus, and I had no confirmation, not anything, but I just went for it. Back in the days, I was not experienced with it, but to go with the flow, it is amazing what stuff can happen. It’s truly amazing. So, I actually ended up in Mazatlán, and I just walked down the harbor. That was 2010. I had no Smartphone. I had no laptop with me, I had nothing, and I just walked around the harbor, and I was like, “All right. I know what this guy looks like and the catamaran. It was 34 feet long. I shouldn’t miss it,” but there was no catamaran and there wasn’t anything. I was like, “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit,” and I waited for about an hour, an hour and a half, and two hours. So, there was a guy coming with – how do you guys call this really tiny wooden boat?”

Matt: Like a rowboat?

Nick: Yes. A rowboat. So, a huge guy two meters tall came and was like, “Are you Nick?” I was like, “Fuck, yeah, I’m Nick, but who are you?” He was like, “I’m Gary.” I was like, “What the fuck? You said it’s a catamaran, not a fucking rowboat.” He was like, “We’re just going to go with a rowboat to the catamaran. It’s over there.” I was like, “Oh, okay. I see.” So, I jumped in the catamaran and I just met my crew. The crew was Captain Gary, the only experienced sailor on that boat, there was another CouchSurfer from Portland – his name was J.C. – and another CouchSurfer, Emile, from Sweden. So, there was a German guy, a Swedish guy, and a guy from Portland, and Captain Gary. The three of us, we could not sail at all, and it was Captain Gary, and it was supposed to be one of the greatest adventures of my life.

Matt: And…?

Nick: To be continued.

Matt: If we were doing a commercial, we would do a commercial break right now because I have not heard this story yet, folks, in terms of exactly how this unfolded, but one of the greatest adventures and one of the earliest ones. This was your first – this was the beginning of your world travels.

Nick: It was my – it was still my – yeah. It was still my first country. I’ve traveled through Mexico for three months and I met some crazy people, and I was riding a shooter through Mexico with this Italian girl. I just fell in love with traveling, and I could not believe that so many things were possible when you just go with the flow, when you trust your gut, when you trust your heart, when you really go out there and be patient and you’re going to be kind and you’re just going to be really open-minded. The whole world is going to transform for you, and it’s just amazing how things work out. Being on that catamaran, the trip was supposed to be for three days, and it was amazing. I had no clue about sailing and I thought, “Maybe I can be behind the steering wheel of that catamaran,” but there was no way because there were – he was almost German, Captain Gary, because there were proper cleaning shifts and sailing shifts and it was really planned because every one of us, we had to do – some of us had to do the cleaning, some of us had to do the cooking and the sailing and everything, but it was truly amazing since I’ve seen dolphins, whales, and sharks, and in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it was crystal clear, and you just jump in front of the catamaran and it just sails over you, and you just grab a rope and you can just hang there for miles, and it’s amazing. It was truly amazing. In the middle of the night, my sailing time was from 2:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m., so basically it was pitch black. You couldn’t see anything. Literally, you stand on that catamaran. Everybody was sleeping apart from J.C. because he was seasick so you could just hear him vomiting all the time just like, “Blech.” So, basically you just steer the catamaran, and if you put your hand in front of your face, you could not see it. It is pitch black. In the middle of the ocean when there’s no moon, not anything, you could just put your hand in front of your face and be like, “Holy shit. I can’t see my hand,” which was truly amazing, and back then I had no clue about this so-called – shit – what’s it called in English? Bioluminescence of plankton? I’m going to say it in German. [Speaking German]. Basically –

Matt: A luminescence.

Nick: A luminescence. So, basically –

Matt: A luminescence.

Nick: – it’s like plankton? Is it called plankton?

Matt: Yeah, in the water where the water appears to illuminate and become lit from underneath.

Nick: When you touch it, it glows. Imagine I’m sailing on the Pacific. I have no clue about anything, and it is – you’re like two shiny – I don’t know – torpedoes going underneath the catamaran. I was like, “Holy shit. What is this?” There were dolphins playing underneath the catamaran in this illuminated plankton, and I was like, “Holy shit. Oh, my God.” Nobody would believe me. Everybody slept apart from J.C. who was just on the toilet all the time, and then I just heard this voice like this – and I was like, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! This is a whale! This is a whale!” but I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, but I was looking around like, “Where’s this whale? Where’s this whale?” but couldn’t see it. But then, as I sailed further, the illumination was quite brighter, and I could just see out of my right eye there was this huge – I don’t know what kind of silhouette it was – right on the right side of the catamaran, and it just became clearer and brighter and even clearer and even brighter, and I was like, “Holy shit.” Do you know the movie the Life of Pi?

Matt: Yes.

Nick: Do you know when this movie was published?

Matt: Right around the time that you’re talking about, right?

Nick: Actually, a couple of years later. I think it was 2012 to 2013, but that story, I’m telling you – that happened in 2010 – they just fucking copied my experience, literally. I was like – I was like – the Life of Pi, when he was touching the water and this huge whale came up – my whale didn’t just come up and just destroy the catamaran, but it was just right there and he just came up to the surfers right next the catamaran glowing and all of those colors. I was like, “Holy shit!” I had an – how do you say – like a visual orgasm or something like that because it was – it was truly unbelievable, and that happened in three days, everything in three days on being on the catamaran.We went to Cabo San Lucas, and I was supposed to get out of the boat. My initial plan was to go back to Mexico City, fly to Atlanta, travel up the east coast or whatever, and after two and a half months of traveling in Mexico, that was the moment I decided, “Fuck my plan. I’m going to stay on the catamaran.” So, from Cabo San Lucas, I said, “You know what? I’ll keep joining you guys all the way up to Ensenada,” which is just on the south of Tijuana. There we sailed, but the problem was in the beginning when you had your sailing duty, you could just have it in your board shorts because it was really warm, but after a while it gets colder and colder, and you have to get on your jacket and long trousers and almost every single article of clothing because it was so cold because the problem was we got really cold wind from the north from Alaska. When there’s cold wind hitting on warm weather, there’s going to be a thunderstorm. There’s going to be lightning or whatever you guys call it in English. When you’re on the Pacific or on a boat, you just call it a fucking hurricane, and the problem was that fucking hurricane created some big motherfucking waves. So, it was Captain Gary, the only experienced sailor on that boat, and there were three inexperienced CouchSurfers, and we were in the middle of a hurricane. We were in the middle of – I don’t know – how do you call it – 12 meters? How much feet? I don’t know. Maybe 20 to 25-foot high waves.

Matt: Twelve meters is over 36 feet.

Nick: Holy shit. Then, it was 36 motherfucking feet. So imagine you’re going to be on a catamaran and you’re just going to look out into the wide, and you see the horizon. Normally, it’s just on that level as you look, but in the middle of the night when there’s just moonlight and you just look and you try to figure out where the horizon is and you just look, and it’s like, “No. There’s just water,” and you just keep looking up, and it’s like, “No. Still just some water,” and you almost bend your neck just to see the horizon, all the way up there at a 30-foot height, and you know there are waves and they’re just coming towards you, and you’re going to be like holy shit, and they were smashing on the catamaran, pumping it from left to right. It went on for two to two and a half days. In the beginning, it was quite – it was a little bit bumpy and a little bit windy. Poor J.C. He was vomiting all over the boat, and it was just Captain Gary, Emile, and me trying to survive. J.C., literally, he just wanted to die. He was like, “No. Just leave me there. I’m just going to be – I’m going to be – I’m dying. I’m seasick. I want to die.” Imagine at 2:00 in the morning, you get woken up by Emile and he’s like, “Nick. Nick. Come on up. We have to put the sail down because it’s too windy; otherwise, the sail’s going to rip apart,” and I was like, “Shit.” So, we got up, and normally Captain Gary, the most experienced sailor you’ll ever know, and you say, “He’s going to figure it out,” but you just woke up and you just see this guy with fear in his eyes, and he’s just yelling towards you. He’s like, “You guys! You do not walk on that catamaran without holding on to something. Do you understand me?” and I was like, “Holy shit.
What is wrong?” So, the initial plan was to put down the sail because it was too windy. Long story, keeping it short, the sail ripped and we lost one engine. One engine broke down. We lost the anchor locker. We lost the pedals of the small dingy boat thing. Everything went wrong this night. Whatever could go wrong, it went wrong. It was a mess. We went through big waves, and we were just yelling at each other. At one point Captain Gary just said, “You guys. You know what? Fuck it. Just hold on to something and just pray that we’re going to survive the night.” It was – I don’t know – 5:00 in the morning. I was really close to crying but I couldn’t because – and that was the problem because that was the first time in my life I had a fear of death. It’s quite hard to explain it in words even in a foreign language, but you don’t think about how you look or how much money you have or what the future’s going to bring or what your friend’s thinking about you. You just have this one clear thought of “Fuck. I want to survive,” and you do not have that clearance. You don’t have that safeness of “Ah, you’re going to survive.” You don’t have it and that’s a fucking weird feeling, I can tell you.

Matt: The sail ripped, one of the motors went out, and you lost your dingy, and you were going on a catamaran with only one experienced sailor over 36-foot waves. That is unbelievable.

Nick: It is.

Matt: So, how did that turn out? What ultimately –?

Nick: Well, we went through that night. The storm went over. We tried to anchor behind a really, really tiny island, but the ground, the surface was really – it went up and down, up and down, so there was no way to anchor it in a proper way, and since we lost the locker for the anchor, every single time we had to pull up with our muscles 30 feet of chain – and it’s fucking heavy; I can tell you that, and sometimes you’re exhausted and you just let go, and all of the others are just like, “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” We almost punched each other’s faces because we were down to our last single nerve. It was a strange situation since we all got really close at that moment because we had to survive, but on the other side, we just wanted to smash each other’s face because there was no safeness. We were just – it’s quite interesting how the human mind works in extreme situations. Now, as I speak, I survived. Everybody survived on that boat, even J.C. He got 10 kilos lighter or something, but poor J.C. To be honest, the storm went over and we tried to fix the sail with another sail we just cut apart and we tried to stitch it, and then we went up to Ensenada. We tried to sail with one engine with the sail and the engine, and we finally got to Ensenada, and that was the last time I – well, actually, no. It was not the last time I set foot on a catamaran. Actually, when I went from Panama to Colombia, I set foot on a catamaran again, but that was a couple of years later. Right now, I would say it was one of the craziest and hardest and life-changing moments. Back then, I was like I do not ever, ever want to experience that again. Right now, actually I’m quite happy that I experienced it.

Matt: What is your biggest takeaway from that experience years later? Seven or eight years later or whatever it’s been now, looking back on that, what was your biggest takeaway from that?

Nick: Actually, there are two. Number one is that people will change in extreme situations. So, yes, I do trust people, but I know that when it comes to really extreme situations, people will change, and the second one is you never know what’s going to happen, so enjoy life right now. Live in the moment. Just imagine me being on a catamaran, having fear of death, having all of those kinds of crazy adventures, and after a couple of years you’re coming back home and waiting on a bus station of “All right. When is this bus going to appear?” and all the people around you, they complain about, “Ugh, the bus is five minutes late. Ugh,” and I’m just looking at them like, “You have fucking problems, don’t you? You don’t have any problems in your life.” If you’re going to hear that podcast and if you’re going to type into your computer, you’re able to speak, you’re able to read, and you have a decent income, you can be smart and even if you don’t have any income, you can do something about it, but those kinds of moments on the catamaran, they just show you how precious life is.

Matt: Absolutely, man. So, after your Mexican adventures and experience, you then made your way up the United States. That was the next spot on your itinerary?

Nick: Mm-hmm.

Matt: So, did you cross the land border from Mexico into California?

Nick: Yes. Actually, I crossed the border from Tijuana to San Diego. Back then, I hadn’t figured out that it’s quite a hassle to get into the U.S. and especially 9/11 of course, but I went there. I don’t know. I had $28.00 with me or something, and I was just like, “You know what? Let’s just leave Mexico after three months,” and I walked there and I had to pass immigration, and I had to buy this waiver ESTA whatever form, and it costs $27.00. I was like, “Are you kidding me? I’m going into The States with a dollar in my pocket, and literally.” I’m from Germany. I’ve heard a lot of stereotypes about Germans and whatever, but literally, when you crossed the border from Tijuana to San Diego back then, the first building you’re going to see on the side of the U.S. is fucking McDonald’s. I was like, “Holy shit. How hilarious is that?” We Germans, we do know stereotypes about other people from around the world, especially from America about cheering for the president and whatever, but you cross the border and you just see a fucking McDonald’s. I was like, “Yes! Welcome to the U, S, and A.”

Matt: Then, was your first destination – was southern California your first destination?

Nick: Yes. It was San Diego, and back then I didn’t have a plan, but I thought, “You know what? Let’s just stay a week in San Diego.” So, my first CouchSurfing house was Ti, and Ti, she’s an Asian girl from Vietnam, lived in California for ages, and she hosted me for two days, and back then she was like, “Oh, Nick. You know what? We definitely should celebrate in Las Vegas.” I was like, “Yeah. I really want to go to Las Vegas,” but then plans didn’t work out and I went to another host, Abraham. Abraham, he’s half Mexican, half American, and he lived next to the Balboa Park in San Diego. To be honest, San Diego is one of my favorite cities in the U.S. so far. I just became really good friends with Abraham and his neighbor. His neighbor’s called Michael. He was originally from Austria, and he had this gap year back in San Diego, and we just got along really well. So, he said, “You know what? We’re just going to have a road trip” and I can join him to visit the university and I was like, “Shit, yeah.”All of those experiences. I left my job back home. I traveled through Mexico and almost died on a catamaran. Now, I’m in the U.S. and I just experienced I can go to the university with that guy and just – it’s amazing. It was really, really – I was truly blessed. Then we had this plan of “You know what? Let’s go to the Grand Canyon. Let’s go to Phoenix. Let’s go to –” just doing some road trips, and I’ve been to the U.S. in I think it was 2003 in Florida with my parents, but other than that I’ve never been to The States before. We just got along really well with each other, so instead of staying there for about one week, I actually stayed in San Diego for almost a month. During that time, we had some crazy road trips going on, and obviously we also went to Las Vegas and that was quite fun because Las Vegas, it’s – I don’t know – like Ocean’s Eleven or – I don’t know – like Hangover, like all of those movies, when you see it in Germany, you say, “Oh, I really want to go to Vegas,” and then you’re finally there and you’re just like, “Yeah! We’re in Vegas. Vegas, baby!”So, we partied hard, and I gambled and I lost, and the next morning I was like, “Shit. I lost a hundred bucks,” which is nothing by the way. Literally, as a low-budget backpacker, you just walk into a casino and you’re just like, “All right. I’m going to have a hundred bucks with me. I’m going to make a thousand of it and it will be amazing,” but of course you don’t. A hundred dollars is like shitloads of money for a backpacker on a budget, so it means four days of living wherever you want apart from Switzerland – fucking expensive country. You can have a water as an appetizer. There’s goes fucking a hundred Euros. So, basically, I was like, “Holy shit. I need to get some of my money back,” and this Austrian guy, Michael, he went with us. It was Abraham, it was Michael, and it was me, and he had this traditional Austrian lederhosen with him walking around at Oktoberfest on it with this huge instrument. I don’t know what the name is in English. In Germany, we call it C Harmonica. So, I said, “You know what? I need to make some money, and since Michael has those trousers and he can play the instrument, I’m going to wear those trousers and I’m going to do the fucking hilarious Schuhplattler dance in front of the MGM Grand on the strip in Las Vegas.” Actually, we did it and people said, “Ah, you’re American, so you can’t do the German dance.” I was like, “Oh, yes. I’m going to show you I’m German.” So, I just did the Schuhplattler for two hours. We were dancing with people, and everybody was just fucking wasted over there, and they threw some money at us. So, in two hours we made $50.00, and we went back to the hotel, and then my phone rang and Ti was on the other line. She was like, “Nick, you’re in Vegas.” I was like, “Hell, yeah,” and she was like, “I’m in Vegas, too,” because when I CouchSurfed with Ti in San Diego, her initial plan was that we should celebrate a bachelorette party of her friend together, and I was like, “Yeah, sure. I can join.” Back then, she was like, “But you know what? We’re just looking for a stripper.” So, basically, I was like, “Yeah. Whatever. Of course, I can be a stripper.” So, then when I had her on the phone, she was like, “Nick, you’re in Vegas.” I was like, “Yeah,” and she was like, “Yeah. Let’s celebrate tonight because I’m in Vegas and we have a bachelorette party.” I had no clue what a bachelorette party was at that moment. I was like, “Yeah.” It was like, “Let’s make party. Yes! [Speaking German].” It was like my mind said, “Yes, let’s party in Vegas. Fuck, yeah.”And she was like, “Yeah, but we’re still looking for a stripper, and I was like, “Whatever. Okay,” and she was like, “Right. Let’s meet down at the Paris Hotel at – I don’t know – the 18th floor in that room.” I was like, “Okay.” I had a shower and I went there. I hadn’t eaten a lot or almost nothing that day, and I went to this Paris Hotel, went up to the 18th floor, the elevator opened, I walked down, and I just heard this voice, someone like, “Oh, my God. Yeah.” I was like, “Holy shit. What is that noise?” So, there was a room covered with balloons, and I was like, “All right. Oh, shit. That matches the number. Ti told me I should go there.” So, I tried to knock, and I was like, “I could do the German way, the German approach of just knocking at the door,” and I was like, “Nah. They were looking for a stripper.” So, just being in front of that door, I was just smashing the door, and I just hear, “Oh, my God. Who’s there?” So, the door opened up, and I was like, “What the fuck is going on?” and I just got pulled in by seven hardcore Asian chicks ready to party hard, and I was like, “Holy shit. What is going on?” and then I realized a bachelorette party is a bachelorette party, like a [Speaking German] what we call it in German. So, this one – the bride-to-be was almost ready to go and really drunk, and I was totally sober, and they were like, “Oh, Nick. Take the shot and that drink and that.” I was like, “Yes, I do need that,” so I drank a lot and 25 minutes later we were all dancing and partying in the room, dancing, listening to some music until the bride-to-be all of a sudden just throws herself into the bed, reaches for the radio, turns it on, and just looks at me in a really expecting way, and I just had my cocktails, my shots in my hands, I was dancing, and I just realized, “Holy shit.” They were all looking at me in the same way.I was like, “Oh, shit. I think I need to deliver.” We Germans, we always deliver. So, I just called it a #Magic Mike moment. I just did some Channing Tatum movements the German way. It worked out quite well. It was a really good night, though. It was like I made $30.00 in three minutes. I was like, “Holy shit. I’m almost up on my hundred bucks I lost the day before,” and we partied hard in XS luxury club in Wynn, and it was like Vegas. It was truly amazing.

Matt: So, you delivered the strip show, $30.00 for the three-minute strip dance, which is about $10.00 a minute, which is about a $600.00-an-hour rate.

Nick: Fuck, yes.

Matt: Not bad, sir.

Nick: You know what? That’s called Germany efficiency right there.

Matt: You never know. You never know what will happen when you go to Las Vegas.

Nick: No, you never know.

Matt: That is for sure.

Nick: I’ve been there three times, and every single time it was just purely amazing, and I always tell the people at my show “Please promise me when you go to Vegas, just have a hundred dollars in your pocket, leave your credit card back home, and expect the unexpected.”

Matt: That’s amazing. So, you’ve done the west coast. You did southern California, Arizona, you came over to Vegas, and then what was your next move after that?

Nick: I literally just traveled up north. So, I traveled all the way. I’m on the west coast of The States. I went to Portland. I tried the Voodoo Doughnuts which is amazing. Actually, Portland is the only city I can proudly say as a German I really enjoyed the beer. I went to some microbreweries, and it was really, really good. So, I went to Portland, of course, San Francisco, and all the way up to the west coast. I ended up in Seattle, CouchSurfed there with a girl, and the one night we had a shisha I think you guys call it. So, we had a shisha in the living room, and one of her friends, she was like, “So, what are we going to do tomorrow?” and I was like, “I just want to explore the city,” and Julia recommended, “Let’s do this bike ride through Seattle.” I was like, “Hell, yeah. Riding a bike through Seattle, you get to know the city. Sounds good to me.” So, the next day we all met. We rented some bikes and we cycled all the way down somewhere near downtown in Seattle in front of a huge warehouse. I was like, “So, this is weird.” So, we all went into this warehouse and it was pitch black, and I was like, “Holy shit. This smell is really bad and really artificial,” and as soon as your eyes are getting used to the dark, I was like, “What the fuck is going on?” I was standing in front of 500 buck naked people, and I was like, “Shit!” They just brought me into this huge orgy, and I don’t know if I had to cry or smile, and then the smell was really bad, and I was like, “Holy shit. What are those guys doing?” Literally, everybody was buck naked and they got body painted. So, I was like, “Okay.” So, it was the summer solstice party I think you guys call it. So, they’re going to celebrate the summer, and they were riding a bike naked through Seattle body painted, and I was like, “Fuck, yeah. I’m in.” So, I got body painted as the Incredible Hulk. So, while I was standing with – I don’t know. In the end, it was about 800 people. So, I was standing buck naked in that warehouse in Seattle where I had never been before, totally naked, and I just painted myself the tummy, the arms, the legs, and everything were green apart from the knees to the hips, covering it blue. So, this one girl showed up. She was like, “Excuse me. Do you want me to paint your balls?” and I’m like, “Fuck, yes. I do want you to paint my balls.” So, she just painted my balls blue. I was like, “Fuck, yeah, man.” It’s all about living life to the fullest. So, basically, I rode a bike naked through Seattle amongst 800 other people and just screaming, “Ah! I’m the Incredible Hulk! Don’t make me angry! Argh!”

Matt: That is amazing. Well, that is definitely an American adventure. Now, at this point, you are how much through your journey? How long did you spend in the U.S.?

Nick: About six months.

Matt: About six months in the U.S.

Nick: No. No. Three months Mexico –

Matt: Or into your journey.

Nick: – three months –

Matt: Three and three.

Nick: Yeah. Three and three –

Matt: And then you went –

Nick: – then I went through Canada for another three months and there was The World Cup 2010, and in Germany, we love playing soccer, and I was like, “Yeah! World Cup! Go Germany!” and it was in Canada, and nobody gives a shit about soccer in Canada, and I knew there was the first game was Germany against Australia, and we won four to one. I was like, “Yeah! Let’s celebrate!” and normally in Germany, we just hop in our cars and run through the city honking the shit out of the cars like, “Yeah! Germany! Germany!” I watched the game. I was like, “Yeah! Let’s celebrate! Let’s do something!” and the one guy was like, “Yes, let’s mow the lawn.” I was like, “Fuck, no. I want to celebrate.” So, I went to a pub, but nobody was there. So, I just had a couple of beers by myself. So, I went through Canada. I had some amazing experiences in Canada as well. Literally, my show goes on for almost four hours, so that podcast can go on for at least another 12 hours.

Matt: So, after Canada though, you then went to West Asia next? Did you go to West Fiji?

Nick: It was Fiji. So, I went through the west coast of the states, went from west to east in Canada, went down to New York and through back to the west coast, and then I had a flight from Los Angeles towards Fiji. I was supposed to do some island hopping in the Fijis for three weeks and it was amazing. Fiji – have you ever been there?

Matt: Never.

Nick: You should go there once in your life. It is even better than you can imagine. Three-hundred thirty-two islands. Turquoise water. You can do – I don’t know. You can do whatever you want to do. It’s amazing. You can snorkel. You can scuba dive. You can snorkel with sharks. It’s just amazing. Two and a half weeks into my trip in the Fijis doing some island hopping, I was on this one island, and Fijians, if they do something, they’re going to do it with a hundred percent. If they smile, they don’t do it like, “Hahaha.” They’re going to be like, “HAHAHAHA!” They’re just like – out of the gate, it’s just whatever they do, they’re going to do it with 100%. Also, playing volleyball. If you’re going to be in Fiji and you’re going to play volleyball, message me if you’re going to win a game again Fijians because in those three weeks, I’ve never won against a Fijian team. After two and a half weeks, we played volleyball at this beach at 9:00 a.m. in the morning for two hours, and everybody was sweaty and really hot, so we went for a dip in the ocean, came back to the beach, I enjoyed a shower, and some Fijians and some locals and some backpackers sitting around, goofing off, and I just washed my hair. This one guy was like, “Hey, Nick! Nick! Open your eyes! Open your eyes!” and I was like, “All right.” So, I just lifted up my hat, pushed my hair out of my face, and just looked around to who just said my name. So, there was this guy literally standing two meters away and he looked at me and he’s like, “Hahahaha,” and he was pointing a fucking spear gun towards me. I was like, “Holy shit. What is going on?” because he won the game, so he actually had no intentions and no bad reasons for it, and I just looked at him and was like, “Oh, you want to shoot me or what?” And then I just put down my fingers because I put them up to push the hat off my face. I put down my hands and I just looked in his eyes, and his eyes, his facial expression went from this “haha. Look at me. I’m going to make some fun. I’m going to point a loaded spear gun towards you” into this “Oh. Holy shit. By accident, I just pulled the trigger,” and in that moment I was just like, “Foop.” Something really nasty stuff happened on the right side of my body, and I just looked down and I could see – the audience can’t see it, but you can hear and you can see it. There are two scars in my thumb, one here, one there, and there’s another scar on my chest. So, basically that guy of a distance of two meters, he just shot a spear gun into my thumb, came out of the other side, and just went into the right side of my chest. So, my thumb was nailed on my chest, and my first reaction I can’t remember, but people told me my first reaction was, “Fuck!” and I just looked down, and obviously I watched too much Braveheart when I was young, so I was like, “There’s some strange object in my chest, so I’m just going to pull it out.”So, I grabbed between my thumb and my chest and I just ripped it out of my chest, but I still had it in my thumb, so I needed two tries to push it out of my thumb. The shower was still running. I was bleeding like a fucking pig, and the people around me, two seconds before they were just having fun, goofing off, sharing some laughs, and they just saw a Fijian guy shooting a loaded spear gun into a German guy through his thumb into his chest, and they were screaming like, “Holy shit! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” So, two guys just stood up and they just ran away to get a first aid kit. They must be Germans or something like, “Oh, he’s injured. Let’s go. We need to help him.” I was standing there, and I hadn’t had any pain at all, but I was in shock. I was like, “Holy shit. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I got something in my right chest. What is going on right now?” and I was breathing, and this guy who just shot me just stared at me and he was like, “Oh, my God! Nick! Nick! Nick! Are you all right? Do you feel pain? Do you feel pain?” I was like, “No, you fucking idiot. I do not feel any pain, but just give me a Coke and bring me a package of cigarettes because I’m in shock.” So, I tried to figure out what just happened because I was in shock, and I tried to take a deep breath/throat thing like, “woosah,” but that actually didn’t work at all because when I did try to breathe in really deep, I had really terrible pain in the right side of my chest, and I was like, “Shit. There were the lungs.” At that moment, those two other German backpackers came along with the – how do you say – [Speaking German] just like, “Oh, shit! No! That’s not going to work out!” If that happens in the U.S., the ambulance would come straight away and they would just grab you and drive you into the next hospital, ask you if you have Obamacare or not or something like that, but you’re in the Fijis. You’re on the other side of the world. There is no fucking ambulance. There is nothing on that island. So, I literally had to wait for about 45 minutes to get picked up by a fisher with his fishing boat. I was smoking almost a pack of cigarettes during that time. I was smoking if there’s some smoke coming out of the lungs or not. The fisherman came by. He picked me up and he dropped me off on another island about 30 minutes later, and actually on that boat ride, it is sad – when you’re really close to dying, you’re just going to see this really bright light and you just have all of those memories about your childhood just pass in your mind, and you just lay in that boat, and I just had this bright light in front of me, and it was just the sun, but I was still convinced, “I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m fucking dying on a beautiful place on the earth.” So, I went to this other island to get to a medical center, which was basically just a hut made out of bamboos. They just gave me some penicillin and they just stitched me up like that. They just put a lighter and they disinfected it with a needle, and they just stitched me up on my chest. They put some cream on my thumb, put a tape around it, and was like, “All right. You’re good to go. Have fun.” I was like, “Holy shit. Are you guys – what the fuck?” and instead of flying out of the Fijis because that was at the end of my trip, I decided to stay on another island. I really wanted to leave that island I got shot on, so I stayed on another island, Mana Island, because I was a bit scared of getting into an airplane with pressures changing because I did not know if my lungs were hurt or not. I still breathed, and I was like, “All right. I’ll keep living,” but back then I was like, “I’m not going to get on my flight to Australia.” I ended up eventually living in the Fijis for about two months until my chest got better, but I ran out of money. I ran out of money because there’s no ATM on those islands. So, basically what do you do when you run out of money traveling apart from being a stripper is you just look for an institution or a hostel or something. You can just swap your time against money. So, basically I used to do – I was being the chef, the technician, the animator or the entertainer, and the cleaning lady, I was doing those kinds of jobs just to stay there for free. So, I ended up living on Fiji on one of the most beautiful islands in the world I’ve ever seen totally for free. I got to know the locals because I worked with them. It was an amazing experience. I celebrated Christmas with them and I supported a technical dive scuba school. I went on the island a couple of times where – shit. What’s the movie called with Tom Hanks and Wilson?

Matt: Castaway?

Nick: Yes. It was Castaway. Castaway was filmed in Fiji, and it was this specific island. My job on a boat was to drive other backpackers to that island every single day. It was a fucking dream job. So, as I said, in the beginning, the same as the catamaran trip, it sounds really negative, but I was quite happy that something like that happened since then you just know to appreciate the time you have no this planet, and it just worked out really well for me, and I got to know amazing people. We called ourselves the Mana Crew because it’s called the Mana Island, and we have a guy from Canada, me as a German, three guys from England, one from Ireland, and we actually met already three times all of us together after Fiji. We had a meet-up in London. We’re going to meet up in Vegas in 2020. It’s going to be fucking amazing. Everything happens for a reason.

Matt: So, this was now coming towards the end of your first year, which was the initial time that you had allotted for your trip, and then the plan after the first year was to maybe go back and get your job again in Germany, but as we know now from the introduction, your trip and travel adventures and passion for seeing the world has now extended for another seven years. So, can you talk a little bit about that, the choice to extend it, and then initially just doing manual labor to make enough money to live off? But you’ve now come up with incredibly strategic ways to monetize the travel adventures that you’re having in the form of doing podcasts and writing books and creating courses and doing live stage shows that people come to see.  You’ve figured out a way to monetize your passion so you can keep doing what you love and then be able to make money off of it. So, can you talk a little bit about how you basically came to that realization and then executed that all the way up to the point of last year doing your TEDx Talk?

Nick: So, basically, from the Fijis on, I went to Australia. I was nine months on the go, and I was like, “Holy shit. I cannot go back to Germany in three months.” So, basically, as a German, we can use our work and travel holiday visa in Australia and a couple of other countries so we can officially work there and make some money. Before I started my trip, I set my priorities right to save up some money to go traveling. In Australia, I set up my priorities to work there to make some money to continue to travel. So, basically, I thought, “You know what? Instead of having one or two jobs, I’m going to find myself five jobs at the same time.” So, I literally worked seven days a week for 16 hours straight every single day, and I was really grinding it down. After three months, I made almost $15,000.00 Australia dollars. So, I went back to Germany with about 12,000 Euros, which was more than when I left Germany two years ago. So, basically, I lived in Australia for almost a year, I went to Asia and to Vietnam, to Cambodia, to Laos, to Thailand, and I’ve been to Indonesia, to Malaysia, and after two years I went back home just to figure out that it was not just this two years gap in my CV. It was more like a passion because I already knew and I felt it in my body that there was something there because I was not satisfied. I went back and I was like, “Holy shit.” Everything changed so much. I had a really bad travel depression until I realized, to be honest, nothing changed. The only one who changed is me because of all of the experiences, all of the adventures, all of the characters, all of the people I met, and all the stuff I learned and went through. So, therefore, I traveled again for one and a half years in central South America. My girlfriend back in Germany – and then we went to central and South America together. After three and a half years of traveling, some friends I met along the way, they told me, “Hey, Nick. There’s an announce – that Swiss Airlines announced this kind of job opportunity to travel the world for six months and getting paid for it.” I was like, “Shit, yeah. That sounds like me.”Literally, I got this job, I traveled the world for six more months, and I got paid, and I had to write articles, I had to Instagram, I had to Twitter, and I had to write articles for the Onboard Magazine. So, I had to do a lot of work in German and in English. At that time, I realized, holy shit. Actually, I built up some expertise in the travel sector and that a lot of people came along then and were like, “Nick, I’m so jealous. I wish I had your life. I want to travel the world. How did you do it?” and I was constantly on Facebook and e-mail and writing those people about how I started, how I did it, what I went through, what kind of adventures I lived through, and eventually I got really – I didn’t get bored of it, but I was kind of like, “Ah, shit. I have to tell this story for the hundredth time.” So, I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to gather a bunch of people around who always ask me about my adventures back home, and I’m just going to tell my life.” So, I was like, “Yeah, let’s do this kind of travel lecture show.”Then in my village, I was printing some fliers and I invited – actually, I forced every single friend of mine – I was like, “You come up. You’re going to show up because otherwise it just looks really bad for me in front of five people,” but in the end, there were almost 50 people there. The whole room was full. It was packed, and I spoke for five and a half hours. I was chronically going through my travels around the world of almost five years. I really enjoyed it, and people really enjoyed it apart that it was really long and everybody’s butts hurt because we were just sitting there for five and a half hours, but everybody enjoyed it. I heard a lot that when I talk about my travel experiences, it sounds apparently so inspiring and motivational and really funny, and I was really pushed about that that people come to me and it’s like, “Nick, you know what? It’s really inspiring the way you talk about your adventures,” and I’m like, “That’s actually pretty amazing.”So, I started to travel again for six months in Asia until I came up with some digital nomads, and we had this so-called mastermind session of talking about a problem and they’re just going to view it from a different point of view, and they’re just going to give you some advice, and I actually ended up thinking about, “You know what? If I love to talk about my travel adventures and I love to inspire people and people will get inspiration from my adventures I lived all the way throughout the world, why not do this in a semi-professional way?” So, I ended up creating a Facebook event in German, in Berlin. I’m not from Berlin, but I thought I kind of knew a couple of people so they can make some commercial for it or they can just spread the word, and that was on my 30th birthday. It was in May 2016. When I flew back from Thailand over to Dubai to Germany, in Dubai, I celebrated my 30th birthday, and I had no internet connection for three days. When I went back to Germany, my mobile phone didn’t stop vibrating. I was like, “Shit. What’s going on?” So, the Facebook event I set up went kind of viral, so there were 7,000 people interested. I was like, “Holy shit.” Literally, I was sitting in Bangkok and I was like, “You know what? I could call it – what am I going to call it? ‘I’ve traveled the world for six years.’ Okay. ‘Traveling the world for six years.’ Well, there must be a subtitle.” In Germany, we have this phrase when you sit in front of your employee or if you’re going to apply for a job and he just looks at your CV and he’s going to be like, “You have a gap in your CV. What is this?” and you just reply like, “Yeah. It was fucking amazing.” So, basically I just called it “traveling the world for six years, the most amazing gap in your CV,” and people went crazy, and I thought, “Oh, shit. Now, I should get a ticket system and people just selling tickets.” I had no clue about anything about being an entrepreneur, about how to sell stuff, how to price it right and whatever, but it’s all about experience. I always say two and a half years ago, I just stumbled into being an entrepreneur. That was my first show in Berlin. After the five and a half hours talk with my friends, I sold tickets. It was sold out in 24 hours, and I was like, “All right. Maybe I’m going to do an additional talk in Berlin, and then maybe in Leipzig and maybe in Hamburg and maybe in Cologne and maybe in Munich and maybe in Frankfurt,” and it just went on and on and on and on, and nowadays I have more than 70 talks in four German-speaking countries like in Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, and Switzerland, and with more than 20,000 participants in those shows. In the beginning, I have to say, yes, it was amazing to make money and it was amazing to be this guy being on stage talking about his adventures until the first feedback dropped in from people who wrote me. I didn’t know them. They just saw me on stage for three and a half to four hours, but they had the guts to write me, “Nick, my name is –” I don’t know – “I’m that and that old, and I literally – I had to cry in your lecture because you used some words. You described situations I really felt. You touched my heart by talking not just about your adventures, but the way I want to live, and due to your show, I was actually able to have the guts to do what I want to do,” and basically those guys, they just sent me feedback that I was the guy who inspired them to live their dreams, and that is the real value that I have, and when you ask the questions of how was I able to make money to do so, I wouldn’t describe it the way to make money. It’s more like the way to bring value to people. When you bring value and when you bring amazing content to people, if you’re going to solve a problem, you will eventually get paid for it, and that’s the fun thing because, in German the word for “salary” is called [Speaking German] in German, and in the word [Speaking German], there’s the noun of dienen that means “to serve”. So, when you serve people, you will eventually earn money with it, but making money right now, that’s not my No. 1 Priority. My priority is to really inspire people. I don’t know how to say it. When I’m on stage and I talk and people do not know what to expect in the next four hours, and I start to speak, and you just see the small little tiny sprinkled flames in their eyes after four hours, they’re just fucking burning out of their eyes, the fire’s huge, and that’s the moment you’re going to be like, “Fuck yes,” and that is the reason why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Matt: How then after that did the TED Talk come about? You did a TED – your first TEDx Talk was in 2017, so how did that come about and how was that experience for you?

Nick: Well, starting with that point, it was horrible. I was super nervous. It was my first official talk in English. I wouldn’t say this podcast is – yes, it is official, but I have a bottle of wine [inaudible], so I’m fairly tipsy right now. I would’ve loved to be tipsy at the TED Talk since when I’m on stage, I can talk a long time as you’re experiencing right now. I can talk for hours, but back then, they said, “Yes, to officially become a TEDx Talker, your talk must not exceed 18 minutes.” I was like, “Holy shit. How should I do that?” So, I had to script it, everything, and I’m not a big fan of scripts. I’m not a big fan of writing down lines and remembering them and just writing down, just telling them, but I had to do it. I was forced to do it. Initially, it started when I think one of my participants of my shows, when they saw me, one of her friends, she was working in a university in Kufstein in Austria, and therefore, they were organizing a TEDx Kufstein Talk. I think she just brought up my name, and they just contacted me, and she’s like, “So, do you want to have a TED Talk?” I was like, “Fuck, yes! I want to do a TED Talk,” and after that, I realized it had to be in English and it had to be under 18 minutes. I was like, “Shit.”So, I was super nervous. Right now when I go on YouTube and I just YouTube for Nick Martin live life to the fullest TEDx, I’m shaken. It’s like, “Oh, my God. This is so not me.” I was super nervous, and this one guy, he actually – he wrote a comment of “Why does this guy have an Indian accent?” and I was like, “What the fuck? I’m German.” We have the most insane, hilarious fucking idiotic accent ever, and he’s like, “Why does the guy have an English accent?” If I would be on stage, I could do an Indian accent like that. So, “Hello, my name is Nick Martin. I’m from the German country. Do you want to buy some stuff?” But it was a really good experience though. I really appreciated the opportunity to give one, and I just hope that the right people at the right time are going to find that talk and maybe are just going to reach out so I can help them to live their own life to the fullest.

Matt: Well, we’re definitely going to link to your TEDx Talk in the show notes so you can just go to TheMaverickShow.com show notes, and then we’re going to link to Nick’s TEDx Talk as well as everything else that we’ve discussed in this episode, but I just want to ask you and speak to that point you just made about someone who was trying to basically heckle you in the comments and say something negative. “Why does this guy have an Indian accent?” or I’m sure there’s a handful – when I go to your TEDx Talk on YouTube, 97% are thumbs up positive comments, this and that, but there’s going to be that three percent or that five percent of people on your talk and pretty much on everyone’s talk who are influencers that I follow or people that I think are doing amazing work, and there’s always going to be that three percent, five percent, or 10% of people who are just going to have very, very negative things to say about that in the comments section, and for me, it certainly happens with me as well and everyone. So, when that happens, when people make negative comments, that can be really hurtful, and it can really emotionally affect people and debilitate them, and I want to just ask you about how you process that and how you handle those negative comments.

Nick: That’s actually a really, really good question, Matt. I think it’s a process. In the beginning, I was super, super offended when some guys visiting my show wrote a bad comment about, “This show sucks. He’s a fucking dickhead.” They just wrote some really bad stuff, but then I realized other people commented on his comment about, “No, it was fucking amazing and it was really nice and it was really good,” and that’s actually the key point about not giving a fuck about people who do not appreciate it because you always know that there are 79% of people who really enjoyed it. Actually, my goal or my aim is when I do a show that there will be just one person in the audience I might have the opportunity to change so when they walk out of that after that presentation and they think, “You know what? If that guy can do it, I can definitely do it,” then I totally reached my goal because what else are you going to do? Of course, when you do have an episode of The Maverick Show and it’s about a really specific topic or whatever, there will be some haters. Haters are going to hate. It’s always like that, but there will be this one person you’re going to change, and to be honest, that’s supposed to be your goal, and if you can reach that, fuck the others.

Matt: That’s amazing, and I agree with that and I want to just emphasize that for everybody listening because a lot of people who listen to the show that are maybe at the beginning of their journey and they’re willing to put themselves out there and try their best and put out their best content, deliver their best value, and with 100% certainty, there is going to be a certain percentage of people that are going to make very negative comments about whatever it is that you’re putting out there, and I think one of the most important things especially in the early days is to inoculate yourself and prepare for that and understand that a certain percentage is going to have that disposition towards whatever it is that you’re doing, but as long as you can affect and inspire and deliver real value and change lives of at least one person, I agree with that.

Nick: Fuck, yeah. I’m going to give you one more advice on how you can actually prepare for it. Just imagine if somebody’s going to throw out some negative comments or some negative wipes or whatever, just see it that they’re jealous of it. So, they are jealous because you are already setting up a podcast or a live show or whatever. If it’s a YouTube channel, an online course, or you’re just going to – whatever you do, people will get jealous about it. So, just take it as a compliment because you can’t make everybody happy. If you want to be everybody’s darling, you end up being everybody’s asshole.

Matt: If you want to try to please everybody, you’re going to please nobody, so do your thing and deliver your value to a particular niche, which means that other people might hate on it or they might say negative things about it or whatever, but as long as you have your core fans and your core audience and your core market and you’re inspiring and adding value to a certain group of people, don’t worry about the rest, and that I think is really important, and that can debilitate a lot of people from getting going. So, I think inoculating yourself that there is going to be negative feedback no matter what it is that you’re doing and just focus on the one or two people to start, and then that number’s just going to grow and grow and grow in terms of who you’re inspiring and who you’re affecting.

Nick: Exactly, and now we come to that point when I’m going to be like – it was one of the parts in my Ted Talk as well. Of course, number one, you need to get started. Don’t over think. Don’t be afraid of that there are going to haters and don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Making mistakes is the greatest source of knowledge you will ever have in your own life. It doesn’t matter in which sector you’re going to be or you’re going to work or in what way you’re going to fulfill your passion. Just as an example, when you’re at school and you’re going to write down – shit. What’s the word in English for it? I’m going to say it in German. If you’re going to write down a [Speaking German] or an [Speaking German], that means that you have to write something down, and if you’re going to make grammar mistakes or spelling mistakes, you will have a bad mark for it. You were going to receive I think you guys call it a D or an F or something like that. Based on the mistakes you made, you will get a bad mark. So, since you’re small, you will associate making mistakes with negativity because you received bad marks, and that’s actually fucking bullshit. I always say making mistakes you can actually put on the same level as getting experience because when you make – as a small child, you have to throw your fingers on the stove and realize, “Fuck, yeah. This is hot” so you won’t do it ever again. It doesn’t matter if you always get told “don’t put your fingers on the stove because it’s hot.” You have to get that experience. You have to make that mistake and that’s throughout your whole life. Just throw yourself out there and make shitloads of mistakes and learn from them. It is okay to make mistakes. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just gaining experience and learning from them, and the next time you’re going to make it better.

Matt: I think that’s right, and the same is true with different failures that you can have, and this is especially true for entrepreneurs and business owners. People know who listen to The Maverick Show that whenever I have a business owner on, we’re always talking about failures that they’ve made, and most of them have made failure after failure after failure before they were finally able to try the path to success because they learned from every failure and every mistake, and they took a lesson from that and applied it to the next venture, and the key is to just keep on going and applying the lessons that you learned because you’re going to make mistakes for the rest of your life. The only question is whether or not you choose to learn from them and then build from there.

Nick: And keeping on that path instead of like, “I’ve made some mistakes. I should maybe do something else.” No. Just keep on track, keep going, and eventually, you are going to get the results you wish for.

Matt: Nick, at this point, are you ready for some lightning round questions?

Nick: Fuck. I don’t know. The wine is already empty. The water is empty. Go for it. Go for it, man.

Matt: Here we go. What is one book that has most influenced you over the years that you would recommend to people?

Nick: I would not say influence, but actually it’s my favorite book by Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist. I’ve read it about 10 times and every single time I can read between the lines.

Matt: What is one app or productivity tool or gadget that you’re currently using that you would most recommend?

Nick: Since I almost got lost today to walk up to your apartment, behind the scenes, Matt just sent me through a really fucking dodgy area to get to his apartment to do that podcast. He was like, “Oh, yeah. Nick, you’re just going to be five minutes away. This is my address.” I just put it on my Google Maps, and I just walked through a fucking dodgy area through a small town in Brazil. I was like, “Holy shit.” It’s called Rue de Matar and matar means in Spanish “to kill.” I was like, “Is this guy for real? Seriously?”For that, I’m going to throw out an app. It’s called Maps.me, so you can download offline maps, and also Splitwise, which is kind of like a budget finance app and a productivity tool. I work a lot with Trello, Active Campaign, and Slack.

Matt: If you were able to go back in time and give one piece of advice to your 18-year-old self, what would it be? What would you say to 18-year-old Nick?

Nick: I’m going to try to time travel. Right now, I’m 32 years old. I’m going to try and time travel 14 years back in time. I’m probably going to show up in front of myself and I’m just going to punch myself in the face out of the way I dressed, but after that, I think I would actually just reach out my hand and I’m just going to give myself a handshake. I’m just going to smile at myself, and I’m going to be like, “Nick, you know what? Enjoy the ride.” I don’t know if I do have to give the explanation, but I don’t know. All of the stuff I went through brought me to that moment. I’m here right now, and that’s the thing. Yes, I’m a world traveler. I just love to travel. I just really truly like – I was surfing with dolphins today. How amazing is that? I realize sometimes I do live a life that other people dream of, and if I would not have made those mistakes and not have learned those lessons I’ve learned, I wouldn’t be here. So, it’s a path. Everything happens for a reason and just go for it. Seriously.

Matt: When you commented upon how you used to dress back then versus how you dress now, just to contextualize that because this is an audio podcast, you are currently here wearing a tank top, you have long hair, a backward hat, a bathing suit, and flip-flops.

Nick: Seriously, that’s the thing. In Germany, we have this phrase [Speaking German]. That means “what people dress, they are.” So, basically when you walk around – I don’t know – New York or San Diego or whatever, and you just see this guy in this fancy suit, you always think that he’s really, really successful, but giving advice here, those people are going to work for people who are wearing the board shorts, flip-flops, a back hat, and just sitting in front of the ocean. Seriously, just go with the intuition. Like, Gary B. would say, just fucking crush Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesday and all of the rest of the week and just go with it because you can’t do anything wrong. As long as it was something you really want to do, it just feels so good. Sometimes I’m working 23 to 24 hours a day, but it doesn’t feel like work. Of course, sometimes it’s exhausting to put up the podcast and the travel shows and all of the adventures cams I want to do and all of the projects I’m working on currently, but on the other side, I’m still able to go out to surf with a friend with dolphins today. It’s fucking amazing. Life is a gift, so just treat it like that.

Matt: Great advice. On with the lightning round, what are your top three travel destinations that you’ve ever been that you would most recommend people visit?

Nick: As you asked, I’m going to throw that answer. I do not have a favorite travel destination because I always say it’s not about the country; it’s more about the adventure you live there and the people you met there. So, therefore, I have to say I’m going to categorize it and I would say the most beautiful beaches so far in my own opinion out of my own experiences is in Fiji, Zanzibar, and the Philippines. The best food, it’s going to be number one in Mexico, number two in Thailand, and number three in India. The best fun, of course, the United States. The best landscapes I would say Canada, Peru, Bolivia, and Vietnam. The best lifestyle, in Australia –

Matt: And of the beaches, you said Fiji and what was the second one you said?

Nick: Fiji, the Philippines, and Zanzibar.

Matt: Zanzibar.

Nick: Zanzibar. Zanzibar.

Matt: I was just – I –

Nick: Excuse me. I did not pronounce it the right way.

Matt: Which is – which way do people –?

Nick: It’s called Zanzibar in German.

Matt: Which I was actually just in Zanzibar about three months ago, and for people who don’t know, that is an island off the coast of Tanzania in East Africa.

Nick: There’s this one huge advice I’m going to give you right now of traveling the world for eight years because that happened to me in Dar es Salaam, which is the capital of Tanzania. Never, ever – literally, you never, ever travel the world and you go somewhere, and you’re just going to pick up a cab driver and you tell them, “Drive me from one place to the other as fast as you can.” This is a huge mistake. I’ve done that mistake in Tanzania, and those guys, they’re fucking – they take it for real. They just know full-on. They do not know the clutch. They do not know the brake. They just keep going. It’s crazy. That’s a suicide mission. You’re going to be on be on total suicide squad if you’re going to tell people “drive me from one place to the other place as fast as you can.” And second advice, it does not count just for Africa but also for Asia and central South America. When you ask people for directions, don’t take them for granted or don’t believe them a hundred percent. Sometimes in Asia, the countries – if I’m going to ask, “Excuse me. Where’s the library?” they have no fucking clue about where the library is, so they’re going to be like, “This way. This way,” and you go that way and there is no fucking library, and in Africa, it’s like, “Yeah, man. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. Library is you go, you go, you go, you go, you go, and you’re there.” It’s insane how people can lie to your face because they don’t know the directions, but always keep in mind, ask yourself, and download Maps.me, download the offline maps, and you’re just going to figure it out by yourself.

Matt: That is good advice. A lot of people who have no idea will absolutely speak with confidence and certainty that they know exactly where they’re sending you. No question about it.

Nick: Matt did it just before. “Nick, yeah. Let’s meet at this apartment. This is the address,” and he just sent me to a fucking dodgy area.

Matt: You have been to over 70 countries at this point, but you have not been everywhere in the world, so what are your current top three bucket list destinations that you most want to go to you’ve never been?

Nick: I definitely want to do the Trans-Siberian Railway through Russia, Mongolia, and China. I really wanted to do it last year, but it didn’t work out well. Number two is Antarctica. I really want to go there one day, and actually, I’ve never been to South Africa to Cape Town. I heard a lot about it, and it’s supposed to be really nice, and I know I’m going to be there one day, but I still have some time. So, right now I’m enjoying South America, I’m going to enjoy the surfing with some dolphins, and I’m going to enjoy some further travels through South America. I’ve been here in 2013 in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, but now it’s time for some other adventures in South America.

Matt: I love it, man. That’s awesome. Last question, and then we’re going to get into how people can find you and follow you and all of that good stuff. What does it mean to live life to the fullest and how should people listening to this podcast think about that and apply it to their own lives?

Nick: That’s a really good question. When I say to live life to the fullest, I can just tell about my own experience what it means to live life to the fullest to me, to travel, to go out, and live adventures, and be open-minded, and be really generous, and be really respectful to others. Maybe it means a totally different style to different people, but if I’m lying down in my deathbed and I’m going to take the last breath in my life, I just want to close my eyes and think back about the time what I lived through. I just want to have really this amazing and biggest smile on my face ever and thinking about, “Hell, yeah. What a ride.” Mark Twain actually summed it up really nice of “In 20 years from now, you’re going to regret more of those things you haven’t done than the things you did.” So, just go out and explore. Just don’t take yourself too seriously and just go out, drop a smile, be generous, and you have this one life you can remember, so just go for it. Live it to the fullest whatever that means for you.

Matt: I love that, man. So, let’s let people know how they can contact you, how they can follow your adventures on social media, and anything you want to share about what’s next for Nick Martin in the future coming up.

Nick: Right now, I think you’re probably going to follow me on Instagram. The user is travel_echo. So far, the Insta story’s quite a lot in German because I have this German base, but just drop me a message of “Nick, shit. I’ve heard you talking drunk on The Maverick Show, and please do some content in English, and I’m going to go for it.” Then, you can find me on Facebook NickMartin.TravelEcho, and like my show so far, it’s called [Speaking German]. That was proper German. I can repeat it the proper way. [Speaking German]. So far it’s just in German, but here’s the good news. I’m planning to put that show into a slightly different format but then going international like English-speaking in 2020. So, maybe somebody’s going to hear it and they’re going to be like, “Nick, you know what? I’m going to write you an e-mail. We’re going to figure out some venues in the U.S.” It would be a dream of mine of performing in the U.S. It would be amazing. Let’s see. Everything happens for a reason, and there might be this one person who’s going to listen to The Maverick Show and go like, “I’m going to look on travel-echo.com. I’m going to shoot him an e-mail.”

Matt: So, travel echo. We are going to put all of the links and all of the ways you can contact Nick, and all of his social media handles in one place on the show notes page at TheMaverickShow.com, and you can feel free to shoot him a direct message, and then by following you on social media, obviously people will then hear about when you launch the English-language show, when you’re coming to the U.S., and they’ll be in your ecosystem and be able to follow everything that you’re doing. So, we will put all of that in one place.

Nick, thank you so much for doing – our third attempt

Nick: Third.

Matt: – is the winner, man. The third attempt is the winner. Thank you so much for coming back and being here, man. It’s been amazing.

Nick: You know what? Fuck it. Let’s do it a fourth time with another bottle of wine, and I’m happy to do it. No, seriously. Thank you so much for being part of The Maverick Show, and I hope I could give you some value to your audience, and thank you so much for letting me be here.

Matt: Good night, everybody.

Male Announcer: Be sure to visit the show notes page at TheMaverickShow.com for direct links to all of the books, people, and resources mentioned in this episode. You’ll find all of that and much more at TheMaverickShow.com.

Male Promo Announcer: Would you like to get Maverick Investor Groups white paper on real estate investing for digital nomads, how to buy U.S. rental properties from anywhere in the world, and finance in epic international lifestyle? Just to go TheMaverickShow.com/nomad. The report is totally free and available for you now at TheMaverickShow.com/nomad. Female Promo Announcer: Do you want to learn how to travel the world for a year plus with carry-on luggage only and look good while you’re doing it? Go to TheMaverickShow.com/packing to see a free recorded webinar and learn exactly how Matt does it. He shows you the luggage he uses, the specific items he packs, and the travel brands he likes most. Even if you’re just looking to go on shorter trips but pack more efficiently and eliminate your checked luggage, you won’t want to miss this. You can watch the free recorded webinar at TheMaverickShow.com/packing.

[End of Audio]

Duration: 95 minutes